This is an appeal for a redrawing of the Egyptian map so as to transform its conceptual and physical topography from a narrow land-based terrain with a river nexus to a far- flung network stretching from our river through our deserts to all our shores in a way that brought it in line with geographical and demographic developments.

During the past three decades, the inhabited area of Egypt increased from three to seven per cent. Much of the newly inhabited area is well outside the Nile Valley. This is the beginning of a revolution by all standards. The revolution will be at hand when the ratio surpasses 20 per cent of our country's 1,002,450 square kilometres. Some tangible progress has already been made towards reaching this goal, such as the Ain El-Sukhna-Cairo, the Al-Karimat-Beni Soueif, and Qena-Red Sea roads. Still, these are all government-sponsored projects and if they proceed at their current pace it will take a few centuries before Egypt reaches its goal. Unfortunately, we cannot afford to wait so long. At present, over a seven-month period our population increases by the size of the population of Bahrain; over eight months it increases by the size of the population of Qatar; in a year-and-a-half it increases by the equivalent of the population of Kuwait. At its current growth rate, our population will reach 104 million by 2020, which is not that far off, and 160 million by 2050, which is to say in another generation from now.

The solution is to start now, not only by boosting Egypt's competitiveness through the comprehensive Suez Canal project that Dr Badrawi proposes or by means of an Egyptian-based "golden triangle," as Raouf Saad has proposed, but also by spreading Egypt's demographic mass into development zones. I suggest development strips equivalent in land area and population to such countries as Singapore or Dubai and bordering the shores of the Sinai and the Red Sea coast at Shalatin, Marsa Alam, Ghardaqa and, of course, Zaafrana. I imagine, however, that the major locus for growth will be on the north coast, in the governorate of Matrouh, where there are 166,000 square kilometres just across the street from Europe. The name of that street, by the way, is the Mediterranean.

We must agree that the Egyptian people, by virtue of their population growth rate, cannot wait.

Al-Ahram Weekly